have formed themselves into a confederacy, called the Austro-Germanic
Union, which includes the lines of Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria,
Hanover, Würtemberg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the Grand Duchy of
Baden. The Union regulates the tariff and all questions relative to the
working of the allied lines.
[40] See "Tariff of the Rates charged for general Dispatches on the
Pittsburgh and Louisville Telegraph, Jones's Electric Telegraph, New
York," p. 105.
[41] The West of England Fire-Office, which retains the command of its own
engines.
[42]
The following are the stations:-- No. of engines.
Watling Street (the principal station) 4
Wellclose Square 3
Farringdon Street 4
Chandos Street, Covent Garden 3
Schoolhouse Lane, Ratcliffe 1
Horseferry Road, Westminster 1
Waterloo Road 1
Paradise Row, Rotherhithe 1
Jeffrey Square, St. Mary-Axe 2
Whitecross Street 1
High Holborn, No. 254 2
Crown Street, Soho 2
Wells Street, Oxford Street 1
Baker Street, Portman Square 1
King Street, Golden Square 3
Southwark Bridge Road 3
Morgan's Lane, Tooley Street 1
Floating engine, off King's Stairs, Rotherhithe 1
" off Southwark Bridge 1-36
[43] Repeated reference to this valuable work has more than confirmed the
opinion we originally expressed of it. There are few books of greater
utility than what is in fact a "History of London, Past and Present."
[44] The roof of the pile of buildings composing Somerset-House is also
continuous, thereby greatly increasing the risk of the entire building, if
one portion of it were to catch.
[45] In Nottingham, where they have gypsum in the neighbourhood, as they
have in Paris, they form their floors and partitions in the same solid
manner, and the consequence is, that a building is rarely burned down in
that town.
[46] The following are the stations of the fire-escapes:--
_Western District._--1. Edgeware Road, near Cambridge Terrace; 2. Baker
Street, corner of King Street; 3. Great Portland Street, by the chapel; 4.
New Road, corner of Albany Street; 5. New Road, Euston Square, in front of
St. Pancras Church; 6. Camden Town, in front of "The Southampton Arms;" 7.
Battle-bridge, King's Cross; 8. Guildford Street, Foundling Hospital; 9.
Bedford Row, south end; 10. Hart Street, Bloomsbury, by St. George's
Church; 11. Tottenham Court Road, by the chapel; 12. Oxford Street, corner
of Dean Street, Soho; 13. Oxford Street, corner of Marylebone Lane; 14.
Oxford Street west, corner of Connaught Place; 15. South Audley Street, by
the chapel; 16. Brompton, near Knightsbridge Green; 17. Eaton Square, by
St. Peter's Church; 18. Westminster, No. 1, Broad Sanctuary; 19.
Westminster, No. 2, Horseferry Road; 20. West Strand, Trafalgar Square, by
St. Martin's Church; 21. Strand, by St. Clement's Church.
_Eastern District._--22. New Bridge Street, by the Obelisk; 23. Holborn
Hill, corner of Hatton Garden; 24. Aldersgate Street, opposite Carthusian
Street; 25. Clerkenwell, St. John Street, opposite Corporation Row; 26.
Islington, No. 1, on the Green; 27. Islington, No. 2, Compton Terrace,
Highbury End; 28. Old Street, St. Luke's, corner of Bath Street; 29.
Shoreditch, in front of the church; 30. Bishopsgate Street, near Widegate
Street; 31. Whitechapel, High Street, in front of the church; 32. Aldgate,
corner of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street; 33. The Royal Exchange,
by the Wellington Statue; 34. Cheapside, by the Western Obelisk; 35.
Southwark, in front of St. George's Church; 36. Newington, Obelisk, facing
"The Elephant and Castle;" 37. Kennington Cross; 38. Lambeth, by the
Female Orphan Asylum; 39. Blackfriars Road, corner of Great Charlotte
Street; 40. Finsbury Circus, corner of West Street; 41. St. Mary-at-Hill,
corner of Rood Lane; 42. Conduit Street, corner of Great George Street.
[47] Mr. Walker, the superintendent of the A Division, we believe,
selected the works in these libraries. The love of books evinced by this
gentleman sufficiently proves that literary tastes are not incompatible
with the energetic performance of police duties.
[48] The partiality for the cook ascribed to the policeman is, we are
assured, a slander upon the force. The commissariat at home is too good to
justify any suspicion of this ignoble sort of cupboard love.
[49] We have extracted this anecdote from the very interesting work
published by Captain Chesterton, entitled "Revelations of Prison Life."
[50] Since the above was written, the attention of Government has been
drawn to the condition of our mines, and a commission of inquiry will
speedily, we hear, be appointed.
[51] W. T. Cox, Esq., in _British Medical Journal_.
[52] A just appreciation of the value of life is, perhaps, of more
importance to Friendly Societies than to Insurance Offices, inasmuch, as
the range of sickness in the working classes is much more extensive than
in the upper and middle walks of life. Mr. Hardwick, in his manual on
enrolled Friendly Societies, has pointed out the fact that the vast
majority of these societies are based upon calculations which must in the
end terminate in their bankruptcy: and among the causes which tend to this
disastrous result he mentions the total disregard evinced in these clubs
to a proper estimate of the states of health in different occupations and
localities. It must be clear that the potter, whose average amount of
illness between the ages of 20 and 70 is more than 333 weeks, obtains a
very unfair advantage over clerks or schoolmasters who may happen to be in
the same club with him, and whose average of sickness during the same
period is only 48 weeks. The dyer, again, who, under the present system of
management of Friendly Societies, may be admitted to a club on the same
terms as a wheelwright, claims for 293 weeks of sickness against the
wheelwright's 64. The healthy country artisan is thus made to pay for the
unhealthy town mechanic. If we take the case, again, of the miner or the
Sheffield grinder, and huddle him, without inquiry, into the same Friendly
Society as the agricultural labourer, it must be clear that the latter
must pay for the more than average sickness of his fellows. Until the
relative value of life and of sickness among the working classes is
thoroughly understood and acted upon, as regards the payments of members,
it is clear that the healthy trades must be sacrificed to the unhealthy
ones.
[53] An ingenious Frenchman, of the name of Bernot, has just invented a
file-cutting machine which will, we trust, come generally into use, and do
away with the paralysis arising from the present handicraft. It is said
that the workmanship of the machine is more even than the hand-work: the
files cut in the morning by the artisan being superior to those cut in the
afternoon, in consequence of his muscles becoming tired.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The original text contains several images of a right-pointing hand. This
is represented in this text as [Hand].
End of Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Civilization, by Andrew Wynter